Re: For our own good: splitting the vote. Thoughts?

[Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 11:00:29AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>         Well, splitting a vote into multiple ballots, with options
>  referring to the same outcome, is a horrendously bad idea -- since the
>  massive amounts of strategic voting possibilities will taint the final
>  result.

On the contrary.  It is excess of overlapping options that prompt for strategic
voting.  For example, if I don't care much between option A and option B, but
prefer either of them to option C, I might give equal weight to A and B in order
to prevent circular ambiguities.

In fact it is only starting with the presence of a 3rd option that strategy
gets into the game:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbard-Satterthwaite_theorem

Also, note that my alternate option to Andreas' proposal [1] was carefully
worded to avoid making assumptions about the order in which votes would be
processed.

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/11/msg00086.html

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."